yes
shit MANarchists say
- Thread starter DrRingDing
- Start date
yes
Yep the lick of a firm Taafe
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Very good. Although also sort of gross.
Fez909
toilet expert
Every time I read this thread I'm reminded of Kurt Vonnegut's short story, Harrison Bergeron.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
Who do you think is arguing for equality on the thread?
Fez909
toilet expert
I was careful to say this thread reminds of the story, because I don't think anyone is arguing for that.
To be fair I've no idea why
Fez909
toilet expert
It's a society where everyone is forced to 'check their privileges'.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
I haven't finished reading it yet, but the first few paragraphs are about people being forced to be equal to a pre-determined "norm" and handicapped accordingly.
Fez909
toilet expert
Yeah, it's not complete like for like, and focuses on physical and mental privileges rather than social. But the general idea is similar enough for me to have made a link.
Short story: if you're too strong you'll be weighed down, if you're too intelligent you'll have your thought processed interrupted. This is because you're in a privileged position compared to others.
Privilege theory: if you're a man, your views may hold less weight than a woman, if you're heterosexual then your views may hold less weight than a homosexual. This is because in our society that gender and sexual orientation are in a privileged position.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
I don't think that's what privilege theory is propounding. It *may* be a way in which it could be distorted though, granted.
That betrays your total lack of understanding of privilege theory.
Fez909
toilet expert
Good to see you've pointed out where I've gone wrong then to enlighten me. Oh, wait...
It's tough to know where you to start when you're chatting such shit at this time on a Saturday afternoon.
But hey I''ll boil down what I understand (could be completely wrong here I'm not an academic) to be the essential message behind it.
Some elements of the working class are more oppressed than others both by society as a whole and by their own class, and those parts of our class that aren't as oppressed and indeed sometimes ignore or seem to ignore that oppression need to recognise that is does exist and that sometimes that by default gives them a more priviliged place in society.
In it's crudest terms on the whole life is easier for a straight white able bodied working class male than it is for a lesbian black disabled working class woman in Britain right now.
That doesn't mean that a straight white etc male's opinions on the whole are less valid than anyone elses but they damn sure need to recognise that other working class people have different experiences and those experiences will influence those people's world views just as the striahgt white working class male's views have been formed or at least influenced by experience.
ETA - this doesn't mean that straight white able bodied working class men may not have other oppresions themselves (mental health, abused as kids, or whatever) that also makes them less priviliged than others)
ETA2 - also of course this can be quite easily be taken to ludicrous spiralling opporession competition and that is when it becomes a problem
Some elements of the working class are more oppressed than others both by society as a whole and by their own class, and those parts of our class that aren't as oppressed and indeed sometimes ignore or seem to ignore that oppression need to recognise that is does exist and that sometimes that by default gives them a more priviliged place in society.
In it's crudest terms on the whole life is easier for a straight white able bodied working class male than it is for a lesbian black disabled working class woman in Britain right now.
That doesn't mean that a straight white etc male's opinions on the whole are less valid than anyone elses but they damn sure need to recognise that other working class people have different experiences and those experiences will influence those people's world views just as the striahgt white working class male's views have been formed or at least influenced by experience.
ETA - this doesn't mean that straight white able bodied working class men may not have other oppresions themselves (mental health, abused as kids, or whatever) that also makes them less priviliged than others)
ETA2 - also of course this can be quite easily be taken to ludicrous spiralling opporession competition and that is when it becomes a problem
Well yes another key problem with it- many of it's most vocal proponants do not subscribe to sound class politics - however this is also complicated by a lack of agreement among many over where class boundaries fall.
Fez909
toilet expert
Thank you.
For privilege theory to be useful, it should give direction on how to use the understanding gained of others' experiences to work towards reducing the oppression. What mechanisms does it use to do this?
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
That's where it falls down. The type of privilege theory most are, I believe, talking about on here generally doesn't go much further than the "check your privilege" stuff, which on the face of it is ok-ish, in that it is undeniably a good thing to be more aware of multiple forms of oppression that you yourself might not experience, and the ways in which you might - quite unwittingly - be in some way contributing to that. But it's very much focused on it being an individual thing. "You" should check "your" privilege, and then call others out to check theirs. As I say, in and of itself, that's not a bad thing, but it tends to stop there, believing that if we all just checked our privilege the world would suddenly be lovely for everyone.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
That's putting it mildly.
"Black and brown folks who are not poor or working class — indeed those who are upper middle class and affluent — are still subjected to discrimination regularly, whether in the housing market, on the part of police, in schools, in the health care delivery system and on the job. True enough, these better-off folks of color may be more economically stable that their poor white counterparts, but in the class system they compete for stuff against whites in the same economic strata: a competition in which they operate at a decided and unfair disadvantage. So too, poor and working class whites, though they suffer the indignities of the class system, still have decided advantages over poor and working class people of color: their spells of unemployment are typically far shorter, their ability to find affordable and decent housing is far greater, and they are less likely to find themselves in resource-poor schools than even blacks and Latinos in middle class families."
(Tim Wise: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Glenn Beck? Racism and White Privilege on the Liberal-Left)
Many of the professor types don't want to understand class politics. They don't want to understand that academics or businessmen don't compete with teaching assistants or supermarket workers - that they are a class apart. To them it's "We're all not part of the elite".
Sure class is fluid and it's maleable depending on how capitalism or technology or whatever transforms it, but to them it genuinely matters less than their calling for affirmative action programmes that will ensure equal representation by ratio of the various races on the boards of capitalist firms - without any mass activism expect from publishing lucrative books saying: 'We (whites) are all privileged').
Sure I am in favour of equal representation on boards of firms but I'm not an idiot and I know that's an empty demand that will simply produce new hybrid forms of class oppression.
They're idealists and they believe by their righteousness, company boards, the justice system, the immigration system, the professions and other power structures can be turned around collectively at a stroke to have enough black people in power so that the contours of society that give rise to white privilege will disappear.
They are unable to understand the power of backlash rightist politics against strict quotas or affirmative selection programmes by background. They don't look at how 'anti-privilege' politics works in the real world - how often it either does nothing to or increases class inequality.
The examples are there: India, Malaysia, South Africa since 1994 etc
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
The boot, the whip and a vege-bacon sandwich.
Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
sorry i couldn't help but post this - from the hub of privilege politics theory that is 'Jezebel'. the article itself is a fairly well trodden argument about the lack overweight black women in Hollywood, on the big screen - here's one of the top rated comments:
vidya and 19 moreThis post highlights an important issue. But it doesn't help the stigmatization of fat black women to keep referring to them as 'overweight'/'obese'. I was a little shocked to see these terms used in the article as if they were acceptable to the fat community. We've left behind 'Negro' and 'coloured'; let's dump these offensive, pseudo-medical descriptors as well, please, and use the language that progressive members of the marginalized community in question embrace.
the above pretty succinctly displays, for me, the degenerative spiral of petty censorship and division which 'privilege theory' brings with it, not to mention denial of medical terminology and grotesque conflations with apartheid era America.
Reply
the above pretty succinctly displays, for me, the degenerative spiral of petty censorship and division which 'privilege theory' brings with it, not to mention denial of medical terminology and grotesque conflations with apartheid era America.
There are so many communities out there.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
sorry i couldn't help but post this - from the hub of privilege politics theory that is 'Jezebel'. the article itself is a fairly well trodden argument about the lack overweight black women in Hollywood, on the big screen - here's one of the top rated comments:
vidya and 19 more
Reply
This post highlights an important issue. But it doesn't help the stigmatization of fat black women to keep referring to them as 'overweight'/'obese'. I was a little shocked to see these terms used in the article as if they were acceptable to the fat community. We've left behind 'Negro' and 'coloured'; let's dump these offensive, pseudo-medical descriptors as well, please, and use the language that progressive members of the marginalized community in question embrace.
the above pretty succinctly displays, for me, the degenerative spiral of petty censorship and division which 'privilege theory' brings with it, not to mention denial of medical terminology and grotesque conflations with apartheid era America.
I agree with your point DU, but it's not censorship for someone to say they dislike the constant prefix of overweight to a particular name. It's just a fairly random feeling, that was immediately shot down by the other commenters. Also a US celebrity discussion zone is not the anti-cuts movement here, so perhaps we should chill out about it. Given that no one on here seems to have gone to the AF meeting on privilege theory, perhaps people are ignoring it and challenging it head on only when it needs challenging.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
It will be a lot harder to "challenge head on" after it becomes the lingua franca of a swathe of activists rather then when it's first making inroads into the left on this side of the Atlantic.
Ole
Well-Known Member
Eh? It's a direct call for censorship:
That the issue is about fat black women in Hollywood is surely itself significant, in observing the picture that "privilege theory" looks at.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
"The fat community"
LMFAO
I hope their community centre has extra strong floor joists.
Surely to be part of an oppressed minority you must be a) oppressed and b) in the minority. And even if fat people were in an oppressed minority they could bring an end to this oppression by simply, you know, being less fat.
LMFAO
I hope their community centre has extra strong floor joists.
Surely to be part of an oppressed minority you must be a) oppressed and b) in the minority. And even if fat people were in an oppressed minority they could bring an end to this oppression by simply, you know, being less fat.
Random
Ethnic nalgocrat
Like people without jobs could simply, you know, get a job. "LMFAO."
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Yes. That is the same thing. It's the government's fault people are fat.
There are a limited number of jobs which is less than the number of people who need them. So people don't have complete control over whether or not they have a job.
What there is not a limited supply of is excercise and non-consumption of pies.
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